Beastars, Volume 12

[theradicalchild]

BEASTARS, Vol. 12 by Paru Itagaki
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The twelve installment of Paru Itagaki’s Beastars manga opens, as always, with a synopsis of recent events, after which the wolf Legoshi is at a police station interrogated by Captain Papico the ermine and becoming a registered meat offender due to events in the previous volume, with a consequential ineligibility for many colleges and forbiddance to marry an herbivore such as his love interest, the dwarf rabbit Haru. Louis the red deer, in the meantime, is put under house arrest and is to receive a prosthetic leg, with the current Beastar, the horse Yahya, finding the incidents fascinating.

The manga proceeds to a 29-year-old female sheep named Seven who lives luxuriously and works for a sports equipment company and is reassigned to sales, although she is reluctant to work in the department again and is suicidal given the bullying she’s faced, encountering Legoshi during one of her commutes in the carnivore car, with the wolf refusing to let her on. The two ultimately become apartment neighbors and interact, with Legoshi having been one of the first to address her by name in a long time, the lupine having no electricity at the time.

The action then changes to the Maimai Milk Factory, run by snow leopards, where cows produce milk through the medication galactagogue. Here, a zebra affiliated with the Bureau of Labor Management visits, continuing the board’s investigation of species-integrated factories, accusing the management of covering up shoddy working conditions, after which the investigator writes a check for them to improve said disposition of the workplace. Following this is a flashback between Beastars competitors Yahya the horse and Gosha the Komodo dragon, both commended for the drop in the city’s crime rate at the time.

Back to the present, Jack receives a call from Legoshi’s grandfather to find his whereabouts given the refund of his tuition to Cherryton Academy, after the manga shifts to the Udon Noodle Shop Bebebe, where Legoshi works in the kitchen. It had been noted that he had the skill to wait tables, although the storeowners didn’t want customers scarred by his innumerable scars. Although it seemed at first that the carnivores and herbivores that worked the restaurant seemed at peace, the former upon the latter departing for the workday wanted to chance the black market following their shift.

Louis, in the meanwhile, is a finalist for the title of Beastar, although he believes that Legoshi should have the title; however, the police don’t want the story about the loss of his leg to become public. Juno the wolfess attempts to romance the valedictorian cervine afterward, although he believes their love to be unrequited. Gosha finally reunites with his grandson Legoshi, having a talk with him at a restaurant, after which comes a confrontation by other beasts, ending the action of the main story. Itagaki follows with notes about housing in the world of Beastars, along with Legoshi’s farewell letters to his former roommates.

The twelfth volume is overall on par with its predecessors in terms of quality, which is a good thing as it’s still enjoyable, the central narrative continuing not to lose steam, given the engaging characters and recurring themes of bigotry, along with the mangaka’s anecdotes about the manga’s universe alongside her attempts to sketch humans during a vacation. As with the prior volumes, however, there exists the predicament of the total lack of any mention of omnivorism throughout the storyline, since omnivores do indeed exist outside humankind, but I will continue to read the manga towards its conclusion.

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